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Apollo dies a slow, painful death in the middle of the road, coughing and spluttering her mechanical guts out until she finally collapses into stillness in a wheezy puff of soot.
"No, no, no!" Donnie shouts, beating the steering wheel with his fist. "C'mon, ya lousy metal box! You couldn't even wait 'til after the race?"
He slams his foot onto the accelerator one, two, three more times. Apollo doesn't budge. Stupid fucking car. He pummels his fist into the horn, letting her wail bloody murder into the night like a wounded wolf cub. A vague memory slides through his mind of Frankie telling him to not do exactly that, lest it draw some unwanted attention, but he expels the thought with a rock of his head and smacks the horn one more time for good measure.
A few beats later, his opponent sidles by in the opposite direction, her bike purring in something that sounds like satisfaction. Not that she or it could have won this race without Apollo literally dying, but what-fucking-ever. She must have looped back around to check on him.
Donnie rolls down the window. "Kill the engine, Peacemaker. We ain't goin' nowhere."
Dutifully, the bike goes silent.
"You alright, there, sugar?" Peacemaker drawls, leaning halfway into the window.
"Piece o' shit just died on me." He beats the door with the side of his fist for emphasis.
She frowns─not that Donnie can see past the bandana over her nose, but he can tell from the way her eyebrows crease. "Ah, shoot. And just when things were gettin' interesting."
"Shut up. I had lengths on you."
Peacemaker shrugs. Donnie sighs.
"She's a box o' scraps on wheels. I'm surprised she even made it this long."
"Aww, now don't go sayin' that," Peacemaker says. "Apollo's always been a beauty."
"She's a good paint job and a prayer. Y'know, Daedalus s'always on my fuckin' case about health and safety, what the fuck was he thinkin', stuffin' me into this sardine can of a car?"
"Want me to go grab 'im?"
"Eh, he'll come runnin' in a bit." Donnie slumps defeatedly into his seat. "Ugh. Shoulda sold this thing for scrap years ago."
"Hey." He yelps as Peacemaker reaches into his fucking car and flicks his forehead. "Don't you talk 'bout your own goddamn car like that. This thing is your horse, y'hear? She's raced nice 'nd fast for you all these years, now she's just─"
"Broken her leg and needs to be put down in front of a live audience?"
Peacemaker punches his arm.
"Ow! Fuckin' asshole!"
"She needs a rest," she says. "Head to the stable, water her, feed her, give her a blanket. Read her a bedtime story."
"Yeah, real sweet, 'cept a beddy-bye nursery rhyme ain't gonna revive a dead horse."
"It might if you got a vet."
"...you're losin' me with this metaphor."
Peacemaker chuckles, then points down to the watching crowd. Despite not quite knowing what's going on, none of them seem too anxious that one of the racers has suddenly stopped without explanation. Donnie doesn't blame them─he and the audience both know he'd be screaming bloody murder if there was actually a problem.
"Somewhere down there's a girl we call Cinderella," she says. "An' when I tell you, she's got the magic touch when it comes to cars─she could turn a unicycle into somethin' worth racing the track."
"S'that even allowed?"
She shrugs again. "S'about as legal as what the rest of us here are doin'. Anyway, I'm sure she'd be happy to get ol' girl fixed up."
Donnie's mouth twists, his gaze returning to Apollo's dashboard.
He wasn't lying about her being a goddamn miracle of a car, a thing of hopes and dreams with a metal exoskeleton, but... she has been loyal thus far. Barely given them a problem ever since Frankie had managed to get her working for the first time. And yes, she may be a child of Daedalus, but she's still Donnie's car. His noble steed. It doesn't seem right to just let her lay down and die like this, not mid-race, not in the middle of the track.
The poor girl needs to go out in smoke and flames, not be put down like an old mutt.
"Yeah, fine," he concedes, and Peacemaker nods sagely. "How the fuck am I s'posed to get her down, though?"
"'Ey, Pocket Rocket!"
They both turn their heads.
Heading up the track is Frankie, his trench coat billowing behind him. His mask shines under the track lights, the cogs and wires and their muddy gold colour lending him an eerily mechanic appearance as he grows closer. Or at least, it would, if the mask weren't clearly made of plastic and the paint weren't chipping off like a snowfall. Some twenty-dollar craftsmanship. Donnie's forever glad they didn't actually pay for it.
"How many times?" Donnie snaps, undoing his belt sticking his head out the window. "It's just Rocket!"
"You okay?" Frankie says, coming to a stop just in front of Peacemaker. "What the hell happened?"
"Apollo died on me. Peacemaker says to go to some Cinderella broad and get her fixed up."
Frankie gives him a look akin to if he'd just told him he had a tumor.
Peacemaker snorts loudly, then clamps a hand over her bandana. "Sorry. Not very ladylike of me." She turns to Donnie, jerking her head towards Frankie. "Looks like you've got a towin' team sorted out, huh, Rocket?"
Her bike suddenly roars back to life, as if by magic. Donnie recoils back into his seat from the sheer volume of it. She revs it once, twice, then yanks the handlebars like the reins of an angry horse until she's balancing on her back wheel. The front slams into the ground and then she's off, seemingly headed straight towards Frankie before turning at the last millisecond and running a tight ring around him instead.
"See you at the finish line, bandits!" Peacemaker howls, then she's off like lightning down the track.
Frankie, despite having just been maybe half an inch away from being pummelled into the ground like roadkill, just sighs. "Bank-robbin' asshat."
"You're tellin' me," Donnie grumbles, before his eyes pan to the crowd, then to Frankie. "So, Cinderella?"
It takes a bit of asking around to actually find this Cinderella (Cinderella, what a weirdly prissy name for the profession). That in itself isn't too strange, given the nature of everything they're doing here, but what is weird is the way people seem to almost... cower, when they talk about her. Giving each other looks, issuing vague warnings, pointing the way to her shop like one would a witch's cabin in the woods. But at the very least, nobody turns them away completely, and Frankie amasses a group of restless racers to help push Apollo along until the bandits find themselves at her shop.
(Her 'shop' seems an awful lot like the lived-in garage attached to someone's house, but neither of them point that out.)
It's open when they show up, which saves them the effort of trying to guess exactly which suburban door they're supposed to knock on. But even if that weren't an issue─
"Ah didnae ask fer yer fuckin' life story, now, did ah?!" comes a voice, louder than the crack of a starting pistol. Donnie and Frankie share a look. Poor Cinderella. Nobody ever said street racing created particularly kind customers.
A second voice pipes up, "I─I'm sorry, ma'am, s'just that─"
"Ma'am? Do ah look like yer bloody nan?"
"Miss! Sorry, sorry, miss─"
"Yeh well be sorry in a fucking minute!"
Donnie's nose wrinkles. It's one thing to mess with each other out on the track, but nobody, repeat, nobody can mess with the mechanic.
"Hey!" He bounds forwards into the metal mouth of Cinderella's shop faster than Frankie can stop him, valiantly prepared to pry her from the clutches of this customer from hell, the beginnings of a truly insidious threat on his tongue. But he quickly skids to a halt and swallows it like bile when he takes in the sight before him.
Instead of a trembling Cinderella and a pissed-off Scotsman, he's greeted by a truly tiny girl, 5'3 at a push with a pair of blonde pigtails, wielding a wrench like she's about to turn her customer's bones into spare parts. The customer in turn holds his leather jacket like a shield in front of him, his spiked hair doing little to intimidate anyone, his massive boots adding nothing to his height as he cowers behind a worktable.
Ah, Donnie suddenly, crushingly remembers as the girl─Cinderella─ jabs her wrench into the poor guy's nose. That's why nobody can mess with the mechanic.
"Called in the cavalry for reinforcement, did yeh?" she growls. Her glare is clear as day despite being obscured by her pink welding goggles.
If possible, the customer cowers farther. "No! No, I didn't fucking do anything─"
"Bloody right you didn't! You cannae even pay yer shittin' mechanic─"
"I said I was sorry!"
"─after ah've already given you two chances─"
"Look, I'm gonna─"
"─then y'have the audacity to say ye can pay me in what? Exposure! Like ah'm a plant that needs sunlight!"
"Just calm down, bitch─"
The customer, Cinderella, and the bandits all seem to realize exactly what he just said at the same time.
He audibly gulps. Cinderella's glare settles into something else, steely cold and white hot at the same time.
Frankie has half the mind to cover Donnie's eyes.
"Get. Out," she grits, like the hiss of hot metal touching water.
The man shakily nods, bunches his jacket up in his arms, and half stumbles, half runs out the shop and down the street like a newborn giraffe.
Donnie turns back towards the girl slowly, mechanically, his jaw hanging open in a way he's sure Frankie would have chastized him for if he weren't doing much the same. Cinderella doesn't pays them any mind, because of course she fucking wouldn't, simply cracking her knuckles, her neck, tightening her pigtails (like she isn't already goddamn stressed enough).
"Last time ah take a fucking after-service payment," she grumbles, hands on her hips.
Then she tosses a glance over to Frankie and Donnie, a blindingly sunny smile on her face. "I do apologize, lads, I didnae mean ta do that in front o’ yous. Welcome ta Cinderella's Castle, where we turn pumpkins into carriages! Just pay yer mechanic on time, and there willnae be any problem. Who're you two?"
A silence stretches long between them. Donnie continues to stare, wide-eyed, half expecting her lovely smile to sprout fangs and a forked tongue and her wrench to turn into a pitchfork. Even Frankie can't conjure much to say, a hand gravitating to Donnie's shoulder, probably preparing to push him out of harm's way.
After a beat, Cinderella titters, a disarmingly innocent and... girlish sound. Her gaze slides to Donnie, honey brown meeting muddy hazel. "Don't worry, lamb, I don't bite. Just ask ma boyfriend. I'm here ta help, I promise."
Frankie squeezes his shoulder, a sort of, You wanna take this one, or should I? Donnie shakes his head and clears his throat. "Uh─I'm, I'm Rocket. I do the racin'." He gestures to his brother. "This is Daedalus. He does... everythin' else. Uh, my car decided to kick the fuckin' bucket in the middle of the race, and Peacemaker said you were good with fixin' up that sorta stuff. So. Can you fix her?"
"We can pay upfront," Frankie tacks on quickly.
Cinderella's smile flickers for just a fraction of a second, no more noteable than the flicker of a candle flame. But she continues brightly, "Well, ye've heard right! Where's the beast? I'll give her a look over 'nd see what I can do."
Hope swells in Donnie's chest. One, Apollo can get fixed up and be back on the track, hopefully within the week. Two, Cinderella isn't attempting to poke his eye out with a screwdriver.
"Fuckin'─yeah, okay! Awesome!" He beams up at Frankie, grabbing his hand to pull him out to where Apollo is parked. "Just hang on, her engine's totally dead but she's just on the sidewalk─come on, Dae, y'know she weighs a fuckmillion pounds─"
"You really ain't too good with numbers, huh, Pocket Rocket?" Frankie says, following languidly along as Donnie practically leaps for the car.
"It's Rocket!"
Apollo is only a few paces away, in all her moon-bathed, rusted glory. Donnie runs a reverent hand along her hood, patting her rearview mirror like one would the saddle of a horse. "Don't you worry, ol' reliable," he mutters with a smile. "We'll get you good as new in no time."
Frankie slaps her roof. "Let's get her movin'!"
They're both already poised at her trunk to start pushing when there's a sudden, sharp cacophany from Cinderella's shop. The scrape of something across the concrete floor, the rattle of hard plastic, and then the piercing, rusty squeal of metal against metal. Frankie cringes at the sound, the way it echoes down the empty street, until he starts to see the square of light spilling from the shop growing narrower and narrower, the shadow of a person in the entranceway.
A particularly small person with their hand on the garage door handle.
Donnie's on it before Frankie can even say anything, sprinting back over, with an indignant shout of, "What the fuck? HEY!" He sticks a foot under the remaining empty inches of the doorway but Frankie yanks him back by his collar before it can crush him.
Donnie seethes and curses and rubs at his throat. Frankie ignores him, pounding a fist on the now closed door. "What the hell, lady?" He cups his hands around his mouth and funnels it into the door. "Hey! We already said we'd pay you upfront!"
There's a thin grid of windows just below Frankie's eyeline. He crouches down and glares through it. "Hey, asshole! What gives?"
Cinderella's own scowly quickly slides into view. "Piss off!"
Donnie punches the door. "What the FUCK?"
"Rocket and Daedalus," she spits. "Yeh think ah don't fuckin' know who the bandits are?"
That makes them pause for a moment. 'The bandits'. It's something of an old nickname, largely outdated now that they've made real names for themselves, but she snarls the word like it's acid on her tongue.
"What the fuck!" Donnie repeats. "Peacemaker didn't say nothin' about─"
"Fucking Peacemaker! Ah'll wring that Yank's throat next time she brings that horse 'round!"
Frankie scoffs. "Look, Cinderella, we ain't lookin' for trouble, and we ain't gonna steal any o' your... what, spare parts?"
The girl's glare somehow hardens. "Ye tryin' ta be funny, thievin' bastard?"
"Tell her no!" Donnie hisses.
"Jesus─I'm gonna!" Frankie swats him. "Cinderella, come on! We ain't here to steal, we just want our car fixed! We'll wait outside with the door closed if we gotta! Look, we can stuff the money through these little holes here, y'can count it all yourself, make sure you're happy with it─"
"Do I look like a counterfeit detector to you? How's that gonna 'elp?"
"I'm sayin', you look like a reasonable businesswoman!" He gestures between himself and Donnie, whose anxiety hasn't at all been quelled in the past minute of arguing. "And here we are, a pair of reasonable gentlemen, lookin' to give you our perfectly legitimate money in return for a service."
"If it's legitimate, then it's prolly stolen!" she asserts.
Frankie slumps his head against the door. "Oh, Christ."
"Asshole!" Donnie pipes up helpfully.
"Ah've no business with you, bandits! Get lost, or... just get lost!"
It takes a moment, but Frankie does step back. Donnie looks up a him in bewilderment, brows knitted together in confusion, on the verge of protesting before Frankie raises his hand to quiet him.
"Hey, Rocket." He jerks his chin in the direction of the street. "Go stand over there for a bit, the grown-ups gotta talk."
Donnie's nose wrinkles. "I'm plenty grown-up, too, dick."
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Call me when y'can buy your own jackets. Go sit."
His face scrunches up further. He goes to stamp on Frankie's boot, pauses, seems to think better of it, then turns and scampers off.
Once Frankie's sure he's out of earshot, he tilts his head to the window and finds his mechanic still watching them, narrow-eyed, curious. "Hey, Cinderella?" he says quietly, leaning a forearm on the door. "Talk to me, please?"
"Ah won't negotiate with a thief," she snips back.
"Would you negotiate with a guy just tryna make his kid brother happy?"
CInderella stares at him for a while. Frankie can't tell if she's trying to analyze him or if she's just plain pissed off.
Then she sighes, one sharp huff. Some of the animosity in her gaze flutters away. "Look, I'll be honest: I respect the hustle. Truly. I just cannae have any... funny business 'round here, y'know? S'trouble enough bein' a mechanic fer a pack o' street racers. I get tied up wi' people with reputations like you two and the whole operation goes tits up."
Frankie's brow furrows. "Why are you a mechanic for street racers, then? Kill me for assumin', but if you're as good as they say, you could prolly just go professional."
"None o' yer business."
He shrugs. "It's a choice, though, ain't it?"
Cinderella doesn't say anything, at least not immediately. Frankie takes that as answer enough. Most street rats would be up in arms about that sort of thing.
"Pray ya don't," Frankie continues, "but you could just... pack this whole operation up tomorrow, right? Leave the pack to go find somewhere else to fix up their cars? But you don't, 'cause you make good money from it, and there's people relyin' on you." He smiles thinly. "Same boat, princess. The whole 'bandit' thing ain't just the hustle. It's how I've kept him," he nods towards Donnie, "alive this long."
Cinderella's eyes flit to the side, where Donnie is walking in circles and trying to entertain himself. He can't imagine what she must be thinking. He can only hope it's about how he's done such a good job keeping his baby brother healthy and fed.
"You're smart as shit, y'know," she muses.
Frankie grins. "Hey, it's how we stay alive. People're dumb and love throwin' their money around─ain't our fault we're good at takin' advantage of it."
Cinderella chuckles softly. Frankie's smile grows wider, softer, more sincere, as he raises his hands into the girl's view and clasps them together. "Please, Miss Cinderella? Fix my brother's piece-of-shit dumpster fire on wheels. We'll do anythin' to prove the money is real. Pinkie promise."
He sticks his pinkie finger through the window.
Cinderella's expression melts gradually into something more gentle. Like perhaps she's no longer planning on adding said finger to her collection of screws and bolts. Then, with one last flickering glance to his face, she tentatively wraps her pinkie finger tight around Frankie's. They bob their hands, as though that somehow makes the promise more official.
"Fine." She drops their hands. "Just... behave, I beg."
"Thank you," Frankie murmurs. "Seriously, you don't know how much this means."
"Fuck off," Cinderella says, stepping down and away.
"...what? Jesus, sorry."
She pops back up. "No, like, literally. Step away from the door. I'm gonna pull it up."
"Oh." He takes a long stride away, pushing the tail of his trenchcoat behind him. "Thanks."
The garage door comes up in seconds, one swift motion from bottom to top, revealing a smiley Cindy behind it like it took no effort whatsoever. She pushes her stool away with her foot and throws an arm out to gesture to her shop.
"Welcome ta Cinderella's Castle, where we turn pumpkins into carriages!" she announces proudly, a telltale glimmer in her eye. "Now, what can I do for yeh?"
They pick up Apollo just three days later, clean, refurbished, and absolutely purring.
Donnie's having the time of his life, pressing all the buttons and pedals like he's fifteen and driving for the first time again. Frankie can barely hear Cinderella over his whooping and chattering. Not that he particularly needs to hear her when she's shoving an aluminium tray of brownies and all sorts of other baked goods into his arms as thanks for supporting her business. And Frankie would never, ever complain about free food, but, like... Jesus Christ.
"You're not allergic ta anything, are you?" she asks as he balances the last baggie of cookies on top of the pile.
"Avocado," Donnie says, tentatively poking at the newly-polished rearview mirror.
Cinderella nods. "No avocado in any of these, then, I promise. I hope you like 'em."
"Fuck yeah!"
"Donnie," Frankie says.
"Thank you!" he adds.
"You're welcome, Rocket," she says mildly.
Frankie nods, then looks back to their mechanic. "Hey, thanks again. Saved us a good who-fucking-knows how long rollin' her to some other mechanic."
Cinderella smiles, ducking her head a little. A somewhat unsettling contrast to the last time they spoke to her. "Not a problem. Y'take proper good care of her, the two o' yous. She was an easy fix."
"Awh, shucks, you're makin' me blush. Seriously, thank you. And for the food."
"Of course."
He gets into the passenger seat and places the baked goods carefully on his lap, smacking Donnie away when he goes to make a grab for it.
"Pleasure doin' business with ya, doll," he drawls out the open window as they begin to back out. "We'll give ya plenty of exposure with this baby, I'm sure."
Cinderella giggles and rolls her eyes. "I'm sure you will. Come again!"
They're waving her goodbye just as another car pulls in behind them, sleek, scratched up, clearly another racing car (if the driver with the domino mask weren't indication enough). CInderella's expression immediately drops, cold, disappointed, deadly.
"Ah, this cunt," she murmurs, then marches up to it and knocks hard on the driver's door. "Oi, you miserable fucking PRICK! What did ah say about showin' yer sorry feckin' face here again?!"
The driver responds. Something nasty, by the looks of it.
Cinderella punches the window. Donnie flinches. "ME? Look at yerself, yeh minging pile o' dogshite! Ah cannae even look at yeh half't time, y'make me wanna spit mah own guts out! No─no, listen─are yer ears fer decoration?! They cannae be, theh look like chewed-up bubblegum..."
Tragically, they're driving away before they can hear the end of that conversation, though Frankie's sure the girl's gonna land something devastating. He'll have to ask next time he visits the shop.
"Jesus fuck," Donnie whispers. "That broad scares the shit outta me."
"Learn from her." Frankie jabs him. "That's how little guys like you survive in this crowd. You gotta be scary."
"I'm plenty scary! And I ain't little."
"You sure about that? Pock─"
"If you say 'Pocket Rocket', I will crash this car and kill us both."